Chapter Text
Every person has a way of dealing with trauma, and Xie Lian is no different.
For centuries, he has simply locked his trauma away into the deep recesses of his mind. Most of the time, his memories are fuzzy and blurred with the desperate attempt not to recall anything. He doesn't really want to remember and when he says he can't, it's a thin line between can't and won't.
But the longer he stays with Hua Cheng, feeling safe and cherished and loved, the more those memories start seeping through the barriers he has built inside his mind, his mental walls fracturing and cracking under the continuous flow of torturous images of the past.
On most days, he bears through the flashing images just fine, but sometimes they become too much. Some days he simply wants nothing more than to be engulfed by dark, blissful nothingness.
Of course, this isn't about death, no. Why would Xie Lian want to die when he finally knows how it feels to live?
No.
He just wants to be numb for a while.
And thus, on the days he knows his husband will be away for the night, Xie Lian indulges in that particular desire.
Sitting by the fire at their small house in the mortal realm, Xie Lian fishes a small red pill from his robes. He originally came across the Soft Memory-Block Fantasy pill during his many strolls in Ghost City. Of course, he instantly knew he couldn't purchase it directly or the word would have surely reached Hua Cheng. He had to pull a few strings and cover his tracks but finally he has what he needed, the solution to his increasing problem of flooding unwanted memories.
Xie Lian stares at the fires, transfixed, deep in thought.
The Soft Memory-Block Fantasy pill enables the user to relive their worst memories and try to replace them with kinder ones. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but at least it gives Xie Lian a few blessed moments of silence inside his head, a chance to actively find a way to deal with his past.
Change it, even--if not the reality, at least the memories.
Without thinking about it too much, he pops a pill into his mouth and swallows, closing his eyes as he drifts off, his white-clad form illuminated by the flickering flames.
"Your Highness!"
He knows that voice. It's his husband but—as a teenager?
Where is he?
Ah.
Turning to gaze down at himself, mind oddly separate from his body, he finds a sword protruding from his belly, blood pooling all around him. Little soldier Honghong-er—was that his name?—tries to tend to him frantically, only for Xie Lian to swat him away. His whole body trembles with lust and pain as the flower yaos howl and laugh outside the cave, taunting them with their screams and frantic sexual antics.
"Little soldier," he says, unable to move, impaled to the ground.
"Your Highness!" the little version of Hua Cheng cries out, smoothing his sweaty forehead. Arousal floods his senses at the touch, his cock becoming impossibly hard despite the pain of being pierced with a sword. He hates it.
"San Lang!" he gasps, and the boy freezes, blinking through his tears.
Of course. Here he is just Honghong-er.
"If Your Highness wants to call me San Lang, he may," the boy then says bashfully, face dirty and full of tiny scratches.
"I... want," Xie Lian grunts as a surge of desire courses through him. He wants many things and many of them now include this teenage soldier. It's wrong, he vaguely registers, but this is a dream. Just a drugged hallucination. He's here to indulge, to create better memories, to replace all his pain with something else.
"Come here," he utters and the boy crawls closer. "Take this off," he commands, pointing at the sword.
If Honghong-er finds the request odd, he doesn't say. Instead, he grabs the hilt and pulls, the sword coming off with a nasty shlick of a sound. Blood pours out momentarily out of his abdomen but, as time passes and the yaos scream, the wound starts to close, his spiritual powers renewing his skin and muscle and bone.
At last the pain dissipates, replaced completely with arousal and want targeted at this young version of his husband—the one who is still alive and breathing. The thought messes up with his mind a bit.
Xie Lian very much wants to experience how his husband felt like when he was still warm.
"Strip," he orders softly and Honghong-er's eyes go impossibly round. He makes an undignified noise before doing as he's told, revealing his skinny teenage body that has barely started to fill out, and a lovely half-hard cock nesting between his thighs.
Xie Lian smiles, feeling a bit dirty, a lot delirious. Of course his husband is affected by the poison, too.
"We should treat ourselves," he suggests, opening his own robes completely. His cock springs free and bounces against his bloodied belly, and Honghong-er makes a sound like a wounded animal. Xie Lian wastes no time, pulling the boy to lie on top of him, grinding their cocks together. Honghong-er pants, mouth open and eyes wide, looking like he's having a religious experience.
Maybe he is. Xie Lian silently hums with pleasure.
Their cocks slide against each other and soon they're both rock hard. Xie Lian smiles into Honghong-er's dirty skin, enjoying the heat of the other's body, the warmth of him, the rabbiting heartbeat against his chest.
Honghong-er keeps making small guttural gasps and Xie Lian whines softly, wrapping his hand around their soaked lengths, starting to stroke them together. Honghong-er is soft and sweet in his arms as they seek their release together, whispering nonsense into each other's ears, the yaos screaming with rage and disappointment outside the cave.
It feels so good.
Maybe this is how it should have been that time, too, he vaguely thinks as orgasm starts building up in him, desperate and imminent. On top of him, Honghong-er sobs as he comes, soiling his hand and belly with his warm seed. sparkling tears fall onto Xie Lian's cheeks as he lets go, crying out raggedly as he's pushed over the edge with that sweet warm body clinging onto him.
They pant together for a while, sharing a breath.
"I love you, Your Highness," Honghong-er whispers with a small voice. "I will always love you. There will never be anyone else but you."
"I know, San Lang," Xie Lian says, smiling, falling deeper into the embrace and totally forgetting the pain of the past for a moment.
The cave fades away when he closes his eyes. When he wakes up, he immediately knows—he has that horrible mask on.
His whole body prickles with unease and panic. The weight of Fangxin is heavy on his back and oh. He never wanted to visit this time again. This is, by far, the worst time of his life.
Screaming aloud from the sheer, suffocating horror of the memory, suddenly a pair strong arms wrap themselves around him.
"Your Highness."
It's a deep murmur this time, a dark voice he immediately recognizes.
"Wuming."
His ghost general is here with him, yet another form of his wonderful husband, and finally Xie Lian really realizes he was never truly alone.
"Your Highness should rest," Wuming says quietly.
Xie Lian nods, slumping down. They're at... an abandoned temple?
"I should," he agrees and Wuming's body jolts with surprise.
Right.
He remembers now. He only treated Wuming with disdain back then. His heart aches to do better this time.
Lying down on a dirty rag, he closes his eyes. "Wuming. Would you bring me some flowers."
"Y-your Highness," Wuming stutters and sounds wrecked. His voice wavers and when Xie Lian peeks through his half-lidded eyelids, the ghost is clenching his fists together hard.
"Please," he hastens to add, smiling behind his mask, letting it bleed into his voice.
Wuming nods frantically and runs off, only to return later with a small bouquet of pretty wildflowers. He holds them out silently with his whole body taut, as if waiting for Xie Lian to grab them and throw them away, to trample them like they were the worst of trash.
Xie Lian doesn't do that. Instead, he takes the flowers and smells them. "I love them," he says and carefully takes away his mask. I love you, he wants to say but doesn't, because even though this is a hallucination, Wuming would probably faint. Such a powerful, subservient, delicate, strong ghost, Xie Lian thinks and instinctively grabs his hand, pulling him to lie on the floor with him.
Wuming grunts with surprise but before he can do anything, Xie Lian has removed his mask, their faces meeting for the first time.
His husband is him and yet different. He still has his crimson eye, which is completely out in the open now. Xie Lian smiles fleetingly at the horrified look on Wuming's face, pulling him closer and kissing him silent. Their tongues dance together and Xie Lian pants into Wuming's mouth like a dog.
"You can touch. Please, touch me," he begs and that's all it takes. Wuming growls ferally, tearing away their robes until they're naked and writhing together. Xie Lian sees the tattoo of his name on his forearm and feels a compelling need to touch it.
"Your Highness," Wuming gasps and his body shudders. His cock is flushed and red and Xie Lian adores it. He wants to taste it.
Maneuvering their bodies, he's finally faced with Wuming's dick just as his own pokes at the ghost's lips. Sucking the blunt cockhead into his mouth he feels bliss like nothing else, all the pain finally forgotten. Under him, Wuming licks and sucks his hardness ardently, worshipping every inch. The ghost's hand trail to his ass and just as Xie Lian deepthroats that turgid flesh, Wuming dips his mysteriously slicked fingers between his cheeks, rubbing around his hole until pushing inside.
Xie Lian groans, and Wuming whines as an answer. They pleasure each other like this for a moment until Xie Lian feels he's on the edge already. Pulling away and twisting his body around, he straddles Wuming's hips and stares down at him, enjoying the crazed look on his face.
Leaning in to kiss his powerful wrath ghost deeply, Xie Lian grabs his cock and spears himself on it.
Wuming screams into his mouth and the sound is absolutely beautiful, breathtaking. Xie Lian's eyes roll back in his head as he takes all of Wuming in one go, feeling so full of all things nice instead of that all-consuming horrible hatred that threatened to eat him alive.
"I love you," he whispers and starts riding his ghost general, his husband, all the time looking at his beautiful face, that pretty crimson eye, his gaze devouring absolutely every part of this form of his husband's. Wuming makes a series of noises, sounding like's he dying as Xie Lian fucks himself with his cock, making sure it rubs against his sweet spot with each movement.
Soon he comes, screeching and clenching down on Wuming's length, white splatters of come shooting all over the ghost's nicely muscular chest. Wuming garbles and squeezes his eyes shut. Then he grabs Xie Lian's hips tightly enough to bruise and pumps his hips upwards, finally spilling inside.
They lay like this for a while, sweaty bodies mushed together.
"I don't think I want revenge after all," Xie Lian says, breathless.
"Then what does Your Highness want?" Wuming asks softly, a bit tentatively as if they hadn't just fucked each other's brains out.
Xie Lian laughs and kisses his dear husband. "Wanna get married, Wuming?"
The noise Wuming makes is pure gold and Xie Lian thinks he will never not remember it.
With Wuming's arms around him, he closes his eyes and drifts off into a sleep within a dream, only to wake up in his small hut in Puqi Shrine.
It takes him a moment to decipher the trauma of this particular moment, peaceful and yet not. However, in no time his mind is filled with flashes of his third ascension: the looks of pure contempt in the other gods' eyes, the cold treatment, the humiliation, those three days he merely sat in the Heavenly Capital, alone and depressed and without any purpose. Trying to make himself a home at Puqi Shrine, still alone.
800 years of loneliness, and Xie Lian wants scream from the weight of it.
"Gege," a voice calls out and he jolts, relief flooding his senses. He's not alone; Hua Cheng is in the shrine with him in his San Lang form.
"San Lang," he mumbles, shuffling around to meet the eyes of his husband.
San Lang smiles crookedly, always handsome and oh so cheeky. "A bad dream?"
"Yes," Xie Lian says. "You could say that."
"Anything this San Lang can do?" the youth asks and grins easily. There's worry in his eyes regardless, Xie Lian can see it now.
"Why don't you... kiss me?" he implores and enjoys the full-body shudder that goes through San Lang.
"Gege," his husband utters, floored.
Xie Lian is too tired to play any more games, so he grasps San Lang's ponytail and pulls him to meet his lips in a hungry kiss. San Lang yelps but immediately kisses back, and Xie Lian doesn't need to ask him to touch him. They writhe together on the floor of Puqi Shrine with that painting of Xie Lian looking down at them, blessing them, and indeed, Xie Lian feels so, so blessed. He doesn't realize he's crying before San Lang licks away his salty tears as they hump together, clothed cocks rubbing against each other.
There is so much urgency in them that getting rid of their clothes is secondary. Chasing pleasure comes first.
Xie Lian huffs when San Lang grabs his ass and gropes it shamelessly, forcing him to rut against him tighter, faster, harder. His third orgasm of the trip is approaching fast, the distinctive pull in his belly sending sparks flow all over his body. Shouting, he comes in his pants just as the form under him transforms and morphs, bleeding into that of his tall, dangerous, handsome husband.
Xie Lian watches with bleary eyes as Hua Cheng growls and shudders, his cock twitching against his inside his robes, a wet patch immediately appearing. He falls asleep, too tired to care about anything anymore, too happy and blurry to prolong this dream any further.
When he wakes up, Hua Cheng is holding him tightly. "Gege," he whispers frantically.
"Ngh," Xie Lian says, feeling sated yet fatigued. "San Lang. Husband," he murmurs, then. "What are you doing home?"
Hua Cheng trembles. "Gege, gege. Can't you see? You called out to me in your dreams."
Xie Lian blinks. "I did?"
"Mn," Hua Cheng says, stroking his hair. "Or should I say, hallucinations."
Xie Lian lets out a small sigh. "Ah. So my secret is out?" He should probably feel embarrassed but he's too relaxed and also fairly nauseated from the pill.
Hua Cheng nods solemnly, but his face turns slightly pink. Xie Lian blinks again until he understands. "It was you all along."
Letting out a breathy sigh, his husband cradles him tighter. "Gege is not the only one traumatized by those times."
Xie Lian smiles a little. "I suppose not," he agrees. He feels better already, the memories sealed away again, replaced by all those sweet dreams with his husband.
There is only one more thing to do. "Kiss me better, husband?"